お前の死因にとびきりの恐怖を

Nashi is among the more cerebral writers of Japanese horror I've encountered. I knew that going into this book, and the first half (which comes across as a semi-academic treatment of a strange, fear-creating natural phenomenon at a Japanese high school) was very much what I expected after his previous work. The last half, though, turns into something like a teen romance/hallucinatory nightmare journey toward suicide that... Well. It includes arguments that are puzzling and, frankly, offputting in any context, much less the surrounding story. But then I read the back cover and I kind of get the feeling that this book might be something more personal, and more complex, that it first seemed. Thought-provoking, but in the end, not emotionally impactful.